Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood
ISSN 1463-9491

CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text]

Globalization or Hegemony? Childcare on the Brink: hints from three geographically distant localities in North America

JOHN P. MANNING College of Education, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA
VIDYA THIRUMURTHY Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, USA
HARRIET FIELD Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Canada

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.1.4

In a previous publication the authors examined selected aspects of the structure and curriculum of fifteen childcare centers located in three geographically distant locations in North America and determined that contrasts within and between the regions in terms of structure and curriculum guided by the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s approach indicated that a culture inherent to childcare centers exists. Methods included participant observation and archival research. Journal data were analyzed for emergent themes utilizing modified grounded theory. Content analysis was used on government regulations, environmental and learning materials lists, and curriculum forms. In this article the authors re-examine the data to find that NAEYC’s positional power, as a childcare organization, appears to be influencing the nature of childcare in North America, with some negative consequences.

Family-Centred Practice: empowerment, self-efficacy, and challenges for practitioners in early childhood education and care

LIZ ROUSE School of Education, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, Burwood Campus, Melbourne, Australia

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.1.17

Family-centred practice has been included in the Victoria, Australia Early Years Learning and Development Framework as a key practice principle for professionals working across all early years programs in that state. While this model of partnership for engaging and collaborating with families has long been used in the early intervention sector, the efficacy of adopting this model more widely across the wider early childhood education and care sector has not been explored. This article presents a discussion on family-centred practice as a model for engaging with families in the care and education of their children. Through an analysis of the underlying philosophy and an examination of the core principles and characteristics, the article explores family-centred practice as it sits within a broader theory of partnership. This analysis identifies that while there are essential principles and characteristics that position the model within a partnership framework, it is the notion of empowerment, an underpinning philosophy guiding the model, that adds another dimension to the way practitioners in early childhood education and care settings collaborate with families. In examining the broader early childhood context, the capacity of many early childhood practitioners to effectively implement empowering behaviours is challenged.

Release the Dragon: the role of popular culture in children’s stories

JENNIFER URBACH School of Special Education at the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, USA
ANGELA ECKHOFF Darden College of Education, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, USA

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.1.27

Young learners come to the school environment with myriad literacy experiences, some of which are inevitably based in popular culture. While literacy knowledge drawn from experiences with popular culture has traditionally been viewed as less important than academic literacy, educators wishing to create classrooms that value all children need to shift views of what contributes to student learning. Inclusion of popular culture in the school environment provides a space for extending the possibility of building upon and increasing children’s understandings of these cultural resources. Through an in-depth exploration of a first-grade student’s use of popular cultural items in a classroom-based storytelling project, this research illuminates how experiences with popular culture can become an imaginative and cognitive endeavor that impacts literacy learning.

Early Childhood Staff and Families’ Perceptions: diverse views about important experiences for children aged 3‑5 years in early childhood settings

FAY HADLEY Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University, Sydney Australia

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.1.38

There is a growing body of literature about the potential for early childhood settings to serve as community hubs to develop relationships with families. However, there is limited information about the ways in which families and early childhood staff interface in defining what constitutes ‘quality’ within settings. Researchers have rarely studied families in relation to the development of curriculum and pedagogical practices in early childhood settings. Consequently, the strategies that could assist staff in making meaningful connections with families are not prominent in the current literature. The author’s doctoral research explored families’ perceptions of the support they received from the early childhood setting and in particular examined the nature of the connections between families and early childhood settings. This article reports the findings from Phase 2 of the study, where the views of 58 Australian families and 22 staff working in five long day care centres in the state of New South Wales, Australia, were surveyed about the types of experiences they valued for children in early childhood settings. The findings revealed differing perspectives between families and staff in terms of the experiences they valued in the early childhood setting, as well as in the levels of communication occurring between families and staff about children and the educational program. It is understandable that both families and staff will have diverse views and beliefs (depending on level of training and experience) about what is important in the early childhood setting. This research study provides insights into perceptions of families and staff, and has implications for the ways in which connections could be formed and relationships built with families in early childhood settings.

Aesthetic Education in the Early Years: exploring familiar and unfamiliar personal-cultural landscapes

JOLYN BLANK Department of Childhood Education and Literacy Studies, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.1.50

This article explores a double-bind in early schooling: a persistent value placed upon presenting multicultural art forms to a child constructed as incapable of grasping what is not familiar. The author argues that this bind is situated within dominant developmental discourses that emphasize the appropriateness of concrete and sequential activities and within dominant school art discourses that have constructed early school art as ‘process over product’ and that have understood culture as heritage. Suggesting that all novices – adults and children – make meaning from complex cultural values intertwined with the arts in some similar ways, she presents a description of a personal encounter with a Japanese tea garden and ceremony in order to (a) explore notions of art, development, and school art as cultural sensibilities, and (b) illustrate a cyclical process of direct perception, personal-contextual meaning-making, and discursive analysis. She concludes by arguing that encounters with the unfamiliar present unrealized educative possibilities for aesthetic experience in early schooling and by discussing new directions for an aesthetic early childhood education.

United We Stand: seeking cohesive action in early childhood education and care

KYM MACFARLANE & PATRICIA LEWIS School of Human Services, Griffith University, Meadowbrook, Queensland, Australia

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.1.63

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is a complex field comprised of practitioners who possess disparate qualifications and understandings. While this diversity provides richness in terms of practice possibilities, it can also be challenging in terms of the divisions produced by different disciplinary and philosophical approaches. This is particularly evident in relation to how different practitioners advocate for who holds the truth within their grasp, in relation to best practice within this field. Such advocacy can ultimately divide practitioners in ways that are particularly problematic when political activism is necessary. This article examines the implications of the workforce divisions within ECEC in Queensland, Australia and the impact of such divisions on how practitioners advocate in particular contexts. The authors argue that differences that exist in disciplinary approaches have tended to highlight concomitant differences in understanding about what are regarded as being exemplary practices and in the quest for ‘best practice’. This means that in times when political activism or advocacy is required, ECEC practitioners are divided rather than united as to what high-quality/exemplary practices might actually look like. Such division has constrained rather than enabled practitioners in terms of how they support each other in the practice and political arenas in Queensland and in Australia as a whole. It is suggested that it might be better to gain advantage from a more united approach. The authors use the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who situates social and systemic practices as ‘games’ of practice; and that of Michel Foucault, who conceptualises such notions as ‘games of truth and error’.

The Teaching and Learning of English as an Additional Language in Primary School

LINDA WITHEY Hopwood Hall College, Rochdale, United Kingdom

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.1.74

The article seeks to investigate the methods of teaching and learning English as an additional language in primary education, and to identify the most appropriate and effective means of achieving this. The study tracks a cohort of children from reception to Year 2. Data collection draws on the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative paradigms and combines observations of children and staff, interviews with staff, and focus groups with parents. Alongside these are assessments of children and a review of records and policy documents. This is an ongoing longitudinal study spanning three years; the researcher is currently in the final year of data collection.

© SYMPOSIUM JOURNALS Ltd
PO Box 204, Didcot, Oxford OX11 9ZQ, United Kingdom
info@symposium-journals.co.uk
www.symposium-journals.co.uk